CRANKED

Written by Michael P. Northey, Music/beats by Kyprios and Stylust

Directed by Patrick McDonald Performed by Kyle Cameron

At the Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People in Toronto

As Cranked opens, Stan, a young hip-hop MC, is comparing the slow,
lumbering zombies of old movies to the speedier ones of today's horror
flicks. To him, the modern running undead seem more realistic: "When
you crave flesh ... When it is the sole thing in the universe that you
can focus on and you want it as bad as your next breath of air? Oh
yeah, you will run."

Stan knows of what he speaks: He was a zombie once, one of those
legions of blank-eyed addicts you pass on the street. The flesh he
craved was crystal meth, that particularly insidious form of
methamphetamine whose known aliases include ice, tina, glass, p, jib
and - as in the title of this play - crank. Now, he has kicked the
drug and is preparing backstage for his first freestyle competition
since getting clean.

Created by British Columbia-based Green Thumb Theatre, Cranked is a
musical written by Michael P. Northey with beats by a pair of hip-hop
artists known as Kyprios and Sylust. Northey's slang seems up-to-date
and his metaphors - like the zombie one - are well chosen for the
young audiences this piece is intended for.

In between monologues, Stan - played by Kyle Cameron - charts his
descent into addiction using rap, while as DJ Evan Brenner spins up on
the balcony. Some of Stan's freestyle battles are dramatized, and he
affectingly uses rhyme to finally open up to his drug counsellor.

In one flashback to the classroom - the timeline can get a bit
confusing - Stan delivers a rap about how his father the tool
salesman, who left his mother, is in fact a tool himself, instead of
submitting an essay he was supposed to write about what his parents do
for a living.

He gets sent to the principal's office, the only moment in the play
that feels untrue. I suspect most public-school teachers these days
would give him extra marks for creativity - or at least cut some slack
to a student clearly having trouble at home. Still, when you're
presenting theatre to teens, it doesn't hurt to get them onside by
positioning teachers as the enemy.

Cameron is not a rapper by trade, but does a respectable job of
impersonating one. He is excellent, however, at contorting his wiry
frame to depict "tweaking," the compulsive twitching and picking at
the skin that goes along with meth addiction. (Reminding me a bit of
David Dawson's performance in Nicholas Nickleby; is it possible Smike
was a meth-head?) Cameron is also quick to develop a rapport with his
teenage audience, even challenging in character a kid or two who tried
to squirm out of engaging with the piece through ironic laughter. The
audience seemed comfortable relating to him. After the show I saw, one
girl asked: How do you know if your pot is laced with meth? (The
answer: You don't.) While Cranked never condescends, one of the
websites Cameron referred the teens to during the Q&A session - an
American site called staycrystalclear.com - was less useful, equating
as it does drinking and smoking marijuana with using harder drugs. If
you get as hysterical about beer and pot as you do about heroin and
crystal meth, kids will write it all off as crying wolf.

The rise of meth use among teens across Canada is no joke,
however.

Cranked doesn't shy away from the most disturbing elements. When Stan
talks about picking at and eating his own scabs because of the
chemical residue in them, the image burnt itself into my mind. If this
was the case for others in the audience as well, then the play has
done its job.

Cranked is at Toronto's Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People until
Saturday, then touring through New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and
British Columbia. (information: http://www.greenthumb.bc.ca ).